Scottish Socialist Party United Left
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The Scottish Socialist Party United Left is a new grouping in the Scottish Socialist Party. An appeal to launch this grouping took place on 13 June 2006. The appeal describes the new grouping as a network and not a platform within the SSP. Unlike most other parties the SSP has allowed for the official formation of factions within it, each termed a platform. Examples of these platforms are the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement and the Socialist Workers Platform. Despite bearing many of the hallmarks of a platform within the SSP, United Left do not view themselves as such.
The grouping was formed following a crisis within the party associated with the Tommy Sheridan defamation case and publication of an open letter by former SSP convener Tommy Sheridan, distributed to members which detailed an alleged long-standing slander campaign conducted against him by senior party figures, MSP's and some grassroots activists.
Against a backdrop of rising tension, the group's formation was widely seen as an early indication of an impending purge and possible split within the party. However, that analysis runs counter to the content of the group's appeal, which confirms the signatories' commitment to uniting and building the SSP as a radical socialist party capable of challenging the capitalist system.
The group's founding statement was initially distributed in the name of Pam Currie, SSP LGBT spokesperson, and three rank-and-file members. Other signatories include three SSP MSPs, Frances Curran, Rosie Kane, and Carolyn Leckie, co-chair Morag Balfour, and both SSP councillors, Keith Baldassara and Jim Bollan.
In the immediate aftermath of the formation of the network, a pro-Sheridan counter call was made in an SSP Members Open Letter, calling for signatories and supporters. Both appeals have garnered substantive, countrywide, grassroots support, including many leading party members, thinkers and academics on both sides of the present debate on the future direction of the SSP.
In response to the formation of the United Left faction within the SSP, supporters of Sheridan formed a grouping they termed "SSP Majority". Many of the signatories to the Majority statement subsequently left the party when Tommy Sheridan formed his own party, 'Solidarity' on 3 September 2006
